FERNANDA, the famous little girl detective, admirer of Sherlock Holmes and Hercules Poirot, is the protagonist of a new digital feature film released by the Cuban Film Institute’s (ICAIC) Animation Studio.

The film Fernanda: El extraño caso del Dr. X y Mr. Jai, (The strange case of Dr. X and Mr. Jai) written and directed by Mario Rivas, is the first feature length animated film produced in Cuba since Más vampiros en La Habana (2004).

Fernanda is a methodical, perceptive and very curious girl who loves detective stories and admires great investigators like Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle, and Agatha Christie’s Hercules Poirot.

The animated film about this self-educated detective appears on the big screen after the success of more than 20 13-minute shorts, and several DVDs, of the series, generically named Fernanda.

In these shorts, Fernanda has unraveled cases about costume parties and strange disappearances of plants, carrots, ice cream and a pet bird.

During a press conference at the ICAIC Animation Studios, Rivas recalled that Fernanda was created by his son Daniel. "I liked her from the very first and told him I would continue to develop her. And when I had already created five principle characters, the idea of making Fernanda a detective was born. This works well for the stories we do since they are all different and each one addresses a different investigation."

In the recently released 95-minute film, the little investigator (with actress Irela Bravo providing the voice) faces a series of mysterious robberies of equipment belonging to young inventors, and there is a new twist to the film – Fernanda has an antagonist.

Rivas has created a character named Fransisco who is a little Spaniard on vacation in Cuba with his aunts, who "provides a very entertaining situation in the story, because he wants to help and Fernanda doesn’t want any help. But, finally, they work together and all ends happily between them."

Movie-goers encounter even more - a direct reference to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, adapted to the screen several times.

"A negative character is needed, always the most difficult part in a Fernanda story, since no child is bad. So a situation was created in which a child promotes negative situations at a particular moment, which are corrected in the end as a lesson is learned. In this case, the boy has a double personality and when the personality of Jai emerges, he does bad things," Rivas explained.

Thus the animated film proposes a case with a double personality, action adventures and a sense of humor, the producer added, with many special effects and detailed photographic work to enhance the visual experience.

Those who follow Cuban cinema will recall that Mario Rivas is no newcomer to animation, but rather one of our master animators. From 1969 through 1973, he headed the ICAIC Animation Department and devoted himself entirely to directing the work there, including Pirata Pirateado; El pececito sin color; Érase una abejita; La invasión de los ratones; La niña y el gatico; El elefante sin trompa; several Elpidio Valdés episodes, such as Elpidio Valdés ataca a Jutía Dulce and Elpidio Valdés y Palmiche contra los Lanceros; El árbol de la vida (Best animated short, 15th International Festival of Films for for Children and Youth, Montevideo, Uruguay, 2006) and El Bohío (Coral Prize for Animation, New Latin American Film Festival, 1985).

Rivas reported that nine new episodes for the Fernanda series have been filmed and Fernanda: El extraño caso del Dr. X y Mr. Jai, has been registered to participate in this year’s New Latin American Film Festival, scheduled for December 5-15 in Havana.

During the press conference, Esther Hirzel, director of ICAIC Animation Studios reported that fans won’t have to wait another decade for another feature length animated film made in Cuba. Scheduled for release in April, 2014, is the Spanish co-production of Meñique, in 3D, directed by Ernesto Padrón, "a marvelous, ambitious challenge, with the privilege of music by Silvio Rodríguez."

Two others are also underway in collaboration with Venezuela, Samuel H2O, and Caporito, el guardián de la montaña.

The studios are continually adding episodes for popular series, including Aventuras del Capitán Plin; El Negrito Cimarrón; Elpidio Valdés; Filminutos; Para curiosos and Pubertad.

Since its foundation in 1969, the ICAIC Studios have never abandoned the elements which characterize Cuban animation - the rhythm, the palette of colors, the liveliness and music. These are features which define the medium here.